“Only some of the more colorful references to Captain Bralos’ ancestry and personal habits, my lord Captain,” replied the senior lieutenant wryly.
“Well, Bralos, you get the general drift of the old man’s slanders,” concluded Ehrrikos.
“How did my men take all this, Hymos?” asked the commander of Wolf Squadron. “Do they seem to think the worse of me?”
The youngest officer smiled grimly. “Sir, they considered, first and foremost, the source and thought of all the hardships that he has tried to inflict upon them and all the other soldiers, and they recalled the officer who has so generously cared for them, indulged them, even paid them out of his own purse when his accuser would not. No officer or sergeant needs to tell the troopers of your squadron who is their champion, their benefactor and their truest friend, my lord Captain Vahrohnos Bralos, nor can the fevered rantings of even so high-ranking an officer of this army as the Grand Strahteegos Thoheeks Pahvlos the Warlike convince the squadron that white is suddenly become black and black, white.
“And Captain Opokomees Ehrrikos holds high regard for you, as well, my lord. The Grand Strahteegos ordered the mail be buried, but the captain instead saw it hidden and scattered around the officers’ baggage wagons, instead.”
But when Bralos would have thanked his military peer, Ehrrikos shrugged and said, “Hell, comrade, I’d’ve done the same for any other whom I happened to feel was being wronged and robbed through no real fault of his own. That kind of mail is damnably expensive stuff, I know; I once priced a shirt of it and walked around in a state of shock for two weeks afterwards.”
“But the risk you took for me …” Bralos protested, his words cut off by Ehrrikos.
“Damn the risk, my friend, it’s you who is at risk, terrible risk, every day and every night while Pahvlos is in this camp. For whatever reason, he truly hates you, he means to have your guts for garters, and no doubt about it. Were I you, I’d keep my blankets rolled and my baggage packed constantly. Be ready to take your squadron and ride at a moment’s notice, comrade, for you know that if you flee alone, that monster we now serve will, at his best, send Wolf Squadron on your trail with written orders to bring back your head. At worst, he’ll force them to bring you back alive to be slowly tortured to death, or maimed, then impaled or crucified.”
“No, I talked all of everything over with Sub-strahteegos Thoheeks Tomos Gonsalos while the army was gone,” said Bralos soberly. “I have decided that the very next personal insult or public accusation of wrongdoing of any nature or attempt to get at me through the officers or common troopers of Wolf Squadron will be the time when I sell back my rank, demand , the long-overdue pay of my troopers, sergeants and officers, mount us all up and set out for my vahrohnohseeahn, in the south. As Tomos says, Pahvlos is a very old man and is leading a very strenuous life and cannot therefore be expected to live much longer, even does he not so far overreach himself that the Council finds it must put paid to his long-overdue account lest he finally really wreck this army of theirs for good and all.
“In normal times, I like soldiering, but I cannot do it longer under such a man, so I will leave it until he no longer commands.”
“I pray that you not wait just a little too long, my friend,” said Ehrrikos earnestly … and prophetically, though he knew it not.
Chapter VII
Sergeant Tahntos was seated astraddle a contrivance of wood, the sharp edges of two dovetailed boards cutting like a dull knifeblade into his naked crotch. His arms were trussed brutally tight behind his back, elbows to wrists, the hands become a uniform bluish grey from lack of circulation, the muscles of his upper torso looking fit to burst through the skin with the strain. A brace of heavy shields was suspended from each ankle. His eyes were closed, though the lids fluttered from time to time, and save for trickles of blood from each corner of his mouth, his face was pale as fresh curds, his jaws tight-clenched in his agony.
Three spearmen of the Grand Strahteegos’ foot-guards squatted nearby, watching and occasionally taunting the suffering sergeant in a cruel, childish way.
“Hey, big man, has them boards cracked yore balls, yet? Heheheh,” shouted one of them.
“It was one feller, out of Asshole Ahzprinos’ bunch of stump-jumpers, he was,” another put in, “he scrooched him around wrong and the damn boards cut his pecker plumb in two, he bled like a fuckin’ stuck pig, too, died in five minits. Don’t thet beat all? Hey, Sergeant, you hear me?”
“Aw, hell, he ain’t no fun atall,” remarked the third disgustedly. “He ain’t screamed or begged or nuthin’, ain’t made hardly a sound a body could hear lest they was right up there with him. Maybe we oughta ask for to hang another couple of shields on his laigs, I bet you his money that would start him in to screechin’, boys. What you think, you want to do it?”
The nude, tortured man jerked reflexively as a deerfly bit his cheek, and the movement almost made him lose his precarious balance. Righting himself brought a low groan of pure agony from behind his chewed and bloody lips.
“Here he starts, boys, here he starts,” said one of the foot-guards with excitement and evident relish. “Firstest thing you know he gone be a-howlin’ like a dog and a-cryin’ like a baby at the same time.”
“No, he is not.” The cold, hard voice came from behind them, and they all whirled about to see a fully armed lancer officer sitting a fine horse, his helmet and breastplate winking in the sunlight, a bared saber at rest against his spauldron. Behind him were ranged a dozen or more officers and sergeants of lancers, all armed, all with cold menace shining from their eyes, but none of their stares so icy, so intimidating as that of the officer who led them.
Dropping the reins on the pommel-knob of his war-saddle, the officer waved a signal to those behind him, saying, “Get Sergeant Tahntos from off that hellish contraption before it unmans him or he dies of pain. If these sadistic swine make to halt or hinder you in the least, you have my leave to put them up there in his place.”
After removing the shields from the sufferer’s ankles, strong, gentle hands joined to lift his tormented body from off the sharp-edged boards, then the flashing blade of a dagger severed the cords binding his wrists and elbows. While four men carried their comrade back to the horses to lay him facedown across the withers of yet another’s horse, two troopers batted and cuffed the three foot-guards about until they had surrendered all of the clothing and the money and personal effects of Sergeant Tahntos.
Finding a store of cords and other things beneath the contrivance, certain of the troopers and sergeants took time to bind the arms of the foot-guards, hoist them all up on the sharp boards, weight their ankles, and leave them, already shrieking piteously.
“No slightest doubt but that they’ll be coming after me quite shortly, Hymos,” said Bralos.
“They’ll play merry hell getting you, my lord Captain,” averred Senior Lieutenant Hymos firmly. “Not one officer or man in Wolf Squadron but won’t fight to the very death for you. Comes to that, we can hack our way out of camp and …”
“And you’d all be slaughtered, darted out of the saddle by the light infantry or shot full of arrows by the foot-archers, and I could not live with the knowledge that I’d been responsible for that kind of a massacre,” said Bralos just as firmly. “No, what you will do is first send officer-gallopers to the sub-strahteegos, to Portos and to Captain Ehrrikos of Panther Squadron … oh, and to Captain Chief Pawl Vawn, too. Most of the senior officers are my friends, and, too, I have friends on Council. The only way that that old bastard could kill me unopposed would be to do it in private, and that’s not what he wants at all; for some reason, he wants a public execution complete with all the ritual humiliations and tortures and maimings and a well-witnessed death. No, in custody or not, I’ll be safe for the nonce.